Quick Links

The image size limit has been raised to 1mb! Anything larger than that should be linked to. This is a HARD limit, please do not abuse it.

Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

So where does it say the Salarians are building stealth dreadnaughts? I feel like I missed something important!

Well apparently you don't get that text unless you

Sabotage the genophage cure. So you never read that text because you are not a monster.

What's interesting is if you kill Wrex and destroy the data.

Then you can get Krogan support, get Salarian support, and keep Mordin alive, and have Mordin help on the crucible. Yeah, the Krogan race is doomed to extinction, but since Wreav is in charge, who cares.

Of course, it'll all go to hell in a few thousand years when the genophage wears off and the Krogan are pissed as hell.

I really don't get how the Krogan are doomed to extinction with the genophage. Because Wrex said so? He's wrong. In ME3, the game states a few things.

One, there are over 10 billion Krogan currently alive, that's not a little bit.

Two, Krogan can have 1000 children a year. The genophage makes 1 in 1000 births not carry to term. So, on average, one baby per year per Krogan female. That's pretty similar to Earth standard of reproduction.

Three, Mordin himself in ME2 states that the genophage is designed not to make the Krogan extinct, but to slow down their breeding to allow for advances in technology that allow them to breed unchecked.

That being said, Mordin isn't curing the genphage because it's logical, it's because he feels guilty about how it works. The Krogan females carry their stillborn children to birth and, on average, have 999 stillborns a year. Mordin did not change his mind until after building a relationship with Eve. In ME3, she speaks to Shepard about how she felt after her first stillborn. Mordin looked at the genophage from a pure logical perspective before Eve made him realize how the Krogan women felt (don't forget he's a Salarian, different breeding styles).

Discounting the ethics of forcing stillborns on a race for a moment, the Krogan were never in any danger of going extinct based on the genophage. Their dwindling numbers, if you can call it that, are a social problem, not a reproduciton problem. Wrex in ME1 does state that many Krogan become mercenaries because it allows them to vent their frustration and hopelessness about their racial predicament.

For me, curing the genophage is not an option. The armies in ME3 only have the capacity to fight the Reapers for one year before the infrastructure collapses (a Shadow Broker email intercept in game). So that means, even if fully cured, there is no possible way curing the genophage will be able to contribute anything to the war besides moral to the Krogan. So curing it gives two things based on winning or losing. If the Repear war is won, you now have a fully cured Krogan spread through out a galaxy that lost significan military and infrastructure. There is also no fucking way for a second that I believe Wrex and Eve can control 10 billion Krogan. So winning the war will most likely lead to another Krogan rebellion without adding a single tangible resource to the Reaper war. Second, if they lose the war and are cured....well, congradulations. You just added a few billion babies to get killed by the reapers.

So yeah, I killed Mording and lied to the Krogan about being cured so I could get their help. Then when Wrex confronted me about cheating him and he threatened to pull the Krogan? I killed him too. But guess what? He should have recalled his forces before he confronted me, because he died before he could follow through on his thrreat. In the end, I got the Krogan to help me on Earth (led by Grunt who if you belive him from ME2, likes the genophage) and tricked them into thinking they are cured.

Yes I am a monster.

the idea is that

the genophage was designed to keep the krogan birthrate at population-stable levels, but mordin didn't consider how that would effect krogan culture and behavior. The result of which is they aren't replacing themselves at stable levels.

Mordin initially dismisses this the same way you do, as a the krogan's problem to solve. But that really isn't a fair approach, especially since essentially the entire fate of the krogan since their uplift is the result of salarian engineering. The female (whose name I now can't remember for some reason) talks about how the genophage led to the withdrawal of females from krogan society, since they were too valuable as babyfactories to do anything else (or to be temporarily allowed to do anything else, anyway.)

Honestly, the salarians' use of the krogan isn't that different from what the reapers plan to do to the entire galaxy; harvest a sentient race for their own ends, and if they don't like it fuck them

I know. The genophage isn't directly causing them to die out. It's the psychological aspect of it. They think themselves dying out, so take on a fatalistic attutude that causes them to slowly die out. But the Krogan problem in the end is still a social problem. If, hypothetically, pre-Rebellion. The Krogan set up strict population control, there would have never been an issue. But all that goes against their nature because of the harsh conditions on Tuchanka.

Orca has the right of it. I saw a way to get what I wanted and took it. Even if it meant becoming a monster against everything I believe in. I feel guilty for dooming them to a lifetime of stillborn births, but not guilty if they go extinct. If there was an option to cure them of the genophage and control their birthrate through a more humane manner, I would have taken it.

I'm just trying to justify to myself my own action and convince myself they are the right decision based on a logical and pragmatic conclusion. Kinda like Mordin in ME2

Did that in ME2.

Then in ME3, I snapped like a twig. Wrex was RIGHT THERE. Disapproving. And Mordin was all going around planning to reverse the genophage, when he was the one who argued me around in the first place.

Oh, I argued myself into thinking the decision was right now when it wasn't then.

"It was about the Turians destroying the Krogans. They're cool with it now!"

"Wrex is firmly in charge now. That makes things different."

"The numbers were too fast growing in peacetime. There's a WAR now. Lots of room in the galaxy."

"It'll be different this time. All the bastards are dead."

"The Dalatrass is a bitch."

Some of them might be true. Might even be enough to change the math to make curing the genophage right.

But I know that isn't why I chose it. I just went with "My friends are on this side. I'm not going to betray them."

Like a chump.

That's what made it hard for me. They were my friends and I didn't want to kill them. But I couldn't allow the genophage be cured. I tried to talk them down, but they weren't buying it. The writers really did do a great job on the genophage plot. Tip of the hat to them.

I think the only way for me to be satisfied is to just sacrifice Wrex in ME1 so I can at least allow Mordin to live in ME3. Maybe I'll let Ash kill him so I have one more reason to let her suck nuke.

Because she's a space Hitler.

Mild Confusion on March 2012

Battlenet ID: MildC#11186 - If I'm in the game, send me an invite at anytime and I'll play.

So where does it say the Salarians are building stealth dreadnaughts? I feel like I missed something important!

Well apparently you don't get that text unless you

Sabotage the genophage cure. So you never read that text because you are not a monster.

What's interesting is if you kill Wrex and destroy the data.

Then you can get Krogan support, get Salarian support, and keep Mordin alive, and have Mordin help on the crucible. Yeah, the Krogan race is doomed to extinction, but since Wreav is in charge, who cares.

Of course, it'll all go to hell in a few thousand years when the genophage wears off and the Krogan are pissed as hell.

I really don't get how the Krogan are doomed to extinction with the genophage. Because Wrex said so? He's wrong. In ME3, the game states a few things.

One, there are over 10 billion Krogan currently alive, that's not a little bit.

Two, Krogan can have 1000 children a year. The genophage makes 1 in 1000 births not carry to term. So, on average, one baby per year per Krogan female. That's pretty similar to Earth standard of reproduction.

Three, Mordin himself in ME2 states that the genophage is designed not to make the Krogan extinct, but to slow down their breeding to allow for advances in technology that allow them to breed unchecked.

That being said, Mordin isn't curing the genphage because it's logical, it's because he feels guilty about how it works. The Krogan females carry their stillborn children to birth and, on average, have 999 stillborns a year. Mordin did not change his mind until after building a relationship with Eve. In ME3, she speaks to Shepard about how she felt after her first stillborn. Mordin looked at the genophage from a pure logical perspective before Eve made him realize how the Krogan women felt (don't forget he's a Salarian, different breeding styles).

Discounting the ethics of forcing stillborns on a race for a moment, the Krogan were never in any danger of going extinct based on the genophage. Their dwindling numbers, if you can call it that, are a social problem, not a reproduciton problem. Wrex in ME1 does state that many Krogan become mercenaries because it allows them to vent their frustration and hopelessness about their racial predicament.

For me, curing the genophage is not an option. The armies in ME3 only have the capacity to fight the Reapers for one year before the infrastructure collapses (a Shadow Broker email intercept in game). So that means, even if fully cured, there is no possible way curing the genophage will be able to contribute anything to the war besides moral to the Krogan. So curing it gives two things based on winning or losing. If the Repear war is won, you now have a fully cured Krogan spread through out a galaxy that lost significan military and infrastructure. There is also no fucking way for a second that I believe Wrex and Eve can control 10 billion Krogan. So winning the war will most likely lead to another Krogan rebellion without adding a single tangible resource to the Reaper war. Second, if they lose the war and are cured....well, congradulations. You just added a few billion babies to get killed by the reapers.

So yeah, I killed Mording and lied to the Krogan about being cured so I could get their help. Then when Wrex confronted me about cheating him and he threatened to pull the Krogan? I killed him too. But guess what? He should have recalled his forces before he confronted me, because he died before he could follow through on his thrreat. In the end, I got the Krogan to help me on Earth (led by Grunt who if you belive him from ME2, likes the genophage) and tricked them into thinking they are cured.

Yes I am a monster.

the idea is that

the genophage was designed to keep the krogan birthrate at population-stable levels, but mordin didn't consider how that would effect krogan culture and behavior. The result of which is they aren't replacing themselves at stable levels.

Mordin initially dismisses this the same way you do, as a the krogan's problem to solve. But that really isn't a fair approach, especially since essentially the entire fate of the krogan since their uplift is the result of salarian engineering. The female (whose name I now can't remember for some reason) talks about how the genophage led to the withdrawal of females from krogan society, since they were too valuable as babyfactories to do anything else (or to be temporarily allowed to do anything else, anyway.)

Honestly, the salarians' use of the krogan isn't that different from what the reapers plan to do to the entire galaxy; harvest a sentient race for their own ends, and if they don't like it fuck them

I know. The genophage isn't directly causing them to die out. It's the psychological aspect of it. They think themselves dying out, so take on a fatalistic attutude that causes them to slowly die out. But the Krogan problem in the end is still a social problem. If, hypothetically, pre-Rebellion. The Krogan set up strict population control, there would have never been an issue. But all that goes against their nature because of the harsh conditions on Tuchanka.

Orca has the right of it. I saw a way to get what I wanted and took it. Even if it meant becoming a monster against everything I believe in. I feel guilty for dooming them to a lifetime of stillborn births, but not guilty if they go extinct. If there was an option to cure them of the genophage and control their birthrate through a more humane manner, I would have taken it.

I'm just trying to justify to myself my own action and convince myself they are the right decision based on a logical and pragmatic conclusion. Kinda like Mordin in ME2

Did that in ME2.

Then in ME3, I snapped like a twig. Wrex was RIGHT THERE. Disapproving. And Mordin was all going around planning to reverse the genophage, when he was the one who argued me around in the first place.

Oh, I argued myself into thinking the decision was right now when it wasn't then.

"It was about the Turians destroying the Krogans. They're cool with it now!"

"Wrex is firmly in charge now. That makes things different."

"The numbers were too fast growing in peacetime. There's a WAR now. Lots of room in the galaxy."

"It'll be different this time. All the bastards are dead."

"The Dalatrass is a bitch."

Some of them might be true. Might even be enough to change the math to make curing the genophage right.

But I know that isn't why I chose it. I just went with "My friends are on this side. I'm not going to betray them."

Like a chump.

Or, like a boss

For me, Shepard worked real hard to make sure everyone was comfortable aboard Normandy in my game. Approved of Tali and Garrus' weird cross-species thing at the end. Helped Traynor fit in, checked in on Liara, made sure Javik wasn't trying to enslave everyone every few minutes, helped Cortez over his bullshit. She's an ENFP, what can I say? Sometimes it was a bit much for me, but that's who this Shepard was. The Omega-4 Operation really changed her in my game. She went from a person who would have watched the council get nuked a hundred times, who gladly sacrificed Ashley and Wrex to finish a mission, and who had 0 qualms with working with Cerberus if it meant shooting many robots and their bug-faced servants to really learning that those dark decisions will stick with you forever. Everyone onboard Normandy in ME2 was proof of that - Mordin, Legion, Thane, Grunt, Jack. Every last one of them. And she resolved that every last one of those broken-hearted, deranged psychopaths was going to come back from the other side of that relay. And she did it. Against all odds.

So ME3 rolled around and now all it was...I don't know, man. It was regret. It was Thane's dying prayers for her that sealed the deal. I mean, I'd decided to help Mordin cure the genophage because, ultimately, what the salarians and turians had done wasn't any different than what the Reapers were doing. What the quarians had done before them with the geth - subvert and control another, possibly superior race to preserve some ideal that may not deserve to stick around.

And all I could remember was that the reason the krogan would be dangerous now was because an idiot like Wreav was in charge, and that was Shepard's fault. She was a different person then. She killed Wrex. If nothing else, she owed it to the rest of the krogan to give them the shot that Wrex would have.

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

Kai Leng is a poor man's Shepard, and he gets put in his place.

Even TIM doubts Kai Leng, which I think is telling in and of itself.

Everything that has been said here.

Kai Leng works because its just so clear he's outclassed by Shepard and the company Shepard keeps in every possible way, and that literally the only reason he even has a chance is because Shepard is also in the middle of fighting a galactic war.

Starchild conversation music is called? Not "An End, Once and for All" but the music which plays when you're talking to it.

EDIT: Nevermind found it.

what's the track name?

On YouTube it's "The Catalyst", and it's the unofficial OST.

I'm getting a little annoyed with the official OST for games tending to exclude good tracks.

You can find almost all of the excluded tracks on youtube if you search for them. I was amazed that they didn't include the Virmire assault music in the OST. That's maybe the most recognizable music of all of ME1 for me, tied with the Vigil theme (which they did include).

So where does it say the Salarians are building stealth dreadnaughts? I feel like I missed something important!

Well apparently you don't get that text unless you

Sabotage the genophage cure. So you never read that text because you are not a monster.

What's interesting is if you kill Wrex and destroy the data.

Then you can get Krogan support, get Salarian support, and keep Mordin alive, and have Mordin help on the crucible. Yeah, the Krogan race is doomed to extinction, but since Wreav is in charge, who cares.

Of course, it'll all go to hell in a few thousand years when the genophage wears off and the Krogan are pissed as hell.

I really don't get how the Krogan are doomed to extinction with the genophage. Because Wrex said so? He's wrong. In ME3, the game states a few things.

One, there are over 10 billion Krogan currently alive, that's not a little bit.

Two, Krogan can have 1000 children a year. The genophage makes 1 in 1000 births not carry to term. So, on average, one baby per year per Krogan female. That's pretty similar to Earth standard of reproduction.

Three, Mordin himself in ME2 states that the genophage is designed not to make the Krogan extinct, but to slow down their breeding to allow for advances in technology that allow them to breed unchecked.

That being said, Mordin isn't curing the genphage because it's logical, it's because he feels guilty about how it works. The Krogan females carry their stillborn children to birth and, on average, have 999 stillborns a year. Mordin did not change his mind until after building a relationship with Eve. In ME3, she speaks to Shepard about how she felt after her first stillborn. Mordin looked at the genophage from a pure logical perspective before Eve made him realize how the Krogan women felt (don't forget he's a Salarian, different breeding styles).

Discounting the ethics of forcing stillborns on a race for a moment, the Krogan were never in any danger of going extinct based on the genophage. Their dwindling numbers, if you can call it that, are a social problem, not a reproduciton problem. Wrex in ME1 does state that many Krogan become mercenaries because it allows them to vent their frustration and hopelessness about their racial predicament.

For me, curing the genophage is not an option. The armies in ME3 only have the capacity to fight the Reapers for one year before the infrastructure collapses (a Shadow Broker email intercept in game). So that means, even if fully cured, there is no possible way curing the genophage will be able to contribute anything to the war besides moral to the Krogan. So curing it gives two things based on winning or losing. If the Repear war is won, you now have a fully cured Krogan spread through out a galaxy that lost significan military and infrastructure. There is also no fucking way for a second that I believe Wrex and Eve can control 10 billion Krogan. So winning the war will most likely lead to another Krogan rebellion without adding a single tangible resource to the Reaper war. Second, if they lose the war and are cured....well, congradulations. You just added a few billion babies to get killed by the reapers.

So yeah, I killed Mording and lied to the Krogan about being cured so I could get their help. Then when Wrex confronted me about cheating him and he threatened to pull the Krogan? I killed him too. But guess what? He should have recalled his forces before he confronted me, because he died before he could follow through on his thrreat. In the end, I got the Krogan to help me on Earth (led by Grunt who if you belive him from ME2, likes the genophage) and tricked them into thinking they are cured.

Yes I am a monster.

the idea is that

the genophage was designed to keep the krogan birthrate at population-stable levels, but mordin didn't consider how that would effect krogan culture and behavior. The result of which is they aren't replacing themselves at stable levels.

Mordin initially dismisses this the same way you do, as a the krogan's problem to solve. But that really isn't a fair approach, especially since essentially the entire fate of the krogan since their uplift is the result of salarian engineering. The female (whose name I now can't remember for some reason) talks about how the genophage led to the withdrawal of females from krogan society, since they were too valuable as babyfactories to do anything else (or to be temporarily allowed to do anything else, anyway.)

Honestly, the salarians' use of the krogan isn't that different from what the reapers plan to do to the entire galaxy; harvest a sentient race for their own ends, and if they don't like it fuck them

I know. The genophage isn't directly causing them to die out. It's the psychological aspect of it. They think themselves dying out, so take on a fatalistic attutude that causes them to slowly die out. But the Krogan problem in the end is still a social problem. If, hypothetically, pre-Rebellion. The Krogan set up strict population control, there would have never been an issue. But all that goes against their nature because of the harsh conditions on Tuchanka.

Orca has the right of it. I saw a way to get what I wanted and took it. Even if it meant becoming a monster against everything I believe in. I feel guilty for dooming them to a lifetime of stillborn births, but not guilty if they go extinct. If there was an option to cure them of the genophage and control their birthrate through a more humane manner, I would have taken it.

I'm just trying to justify to myself my own action and convince myself they are the right decision based on a logical and pragmatic conclusion. Kinda like Mordin in ME2

Did that in ME2.

Then in ME3, I snapped like a twig. Wrex was RIGHT THERE. Disapproving. And Mordin was all going around planning to reverse the genophage, when he was the one who argued me around in the first place.

Oh, I argued myself into thinking the decision was right now when it wasn't then.

"It was about the Turians destroying the Krogans. They're cool with it now!"

"Wrex is firmly in charge now. That makes things different."

"The numbers were too fast growing in peacetime. There's a WAR now. Lots of room in the galaxy."

"It'll be different this time. All the bastards are dead."

"The Dalatrass is a bitch."

Some of them might be true. Might even be enough to change the math to make curing the genophage right.

But I know that isn't why I chose it. I just went with "My friends are on this side. I'm not going to betray them."

Like a chump.

Or, like a boss

For me, Shepard worked real hard to make sure everyone was comfortable aboard Normandy in my game. Approved of Tali and Garrus' weird cross-species thing at the end. Helped Traynor fit in, checked in on Liara, made sure Javik wasn't trying to enslave everyone every few minutes, helped Cortez over his bullshit. She's an ENFP, what can I say? Sometimes it was a bit much for me, but that's who this Shepard was. The Omega-4 Operation really changed her in my game. She went from a person who would have watched the council get nuked a hundred times, who gladly sacrificed Ashley and Wrex to finish a mission, and who had 0 qualms with working with Cerberus if it meant shooting many robots and their bug-faced servants to really learning that those dark decisions will stick with you forever. Everyone onboard Normandy in ME2 was proof of that - Mordin, Legion, Thane, Grunt, Jack. Every last one of them. And she resolved that every last one of those broken-hearted, deranged psychopaths was going to come back from the other side of that relay. And she did it. Against all odds.

So ME3 rolled around and now all it was...I don't know, man. It was regret. It was Thane's dying prayers for her that sealed the deal. I mean, I'd decided to help Mordin cure the genophage because, ultimately, what the salarians and turians had done wasn't any different than what the Reapers were doing. What the quarians had done before them with the geth - subvert and control another, possibly superior race to preserve some ideal that may not deserve to stick around.

And all I could remember was that the reason the krogan would be dangerous now was because an idiot like Wreav was in charge, and that was Shepard's fault. She was a different person then. She killed Wrex. If nothing else, she owed it to the rest of the krogan to give them the shot that Wrex would have.

Starchild conversation music is called? Not "An End, Once and for All" but the music which plays when you're talking to it.

EDIT: Nevermind found it.

what's the track name?

On YouTube it's "The Catalyst", and it's the unofficial OST.

I'm getting a little annoyed with the official OST for games tending to exclude good tracks.

You can find almost all of the excluded tracks on youtube if you search for them. I was amazed that they didn't include the Virmire assault music in the OST. That's maybe the most recognizable music of all of ME1 for me, tied with the Vigil theme (which they did include).

The most incredible thing for me is still that "Vigil" is embedded in the machinery sounds in the war room. Every now and again when I was in there I always almost, but not quite, felt like those chords were there. The really awesome thing is that it also really drags out the intro chord - like the whole room is sort of "waiting".

So, I played KOTOR 1, 2, Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 for the first time all within the span of about 2 months. KOTOR 1 I ended up a complete psychopath, dominating the galaxy. I really enjoyed that, having the chance to just be evil for a change. KOTOR2 I intended to do the same, but ended up a Jedi Master. I screwed it up majorly somehow and ended up getting all the evil endings. These were both just playing with pre-determined paths in mind.

Then rolled Mass Effect 1, wherein I was like "Time to just act in the moment, see how I feel." and soon I began to realise I was pretty much a pure paragon. I realised it was less good and evil like KOTOR and more nice guy, arsehole. I liked nice guy, so I eventually ran through 2. I supported Ceberus the entire time, keept everyone loyal, lost both Garrus and Samara. I honestly thought Cerberus would be on the level in 3 if I was buddies with them. Sadly, that wasn't an option.

Then rolled around 3. I was the best damned paragon anyone's ever seen. I maxed out my paragon status, sadly I lost Mordin, Miranda and Legion in the process, but God damn they died for good causes. I nurtured EDI and Joker's relationship, I helped Cortez through his issues, I cured the Genophage, I chose the green ending. I was the best damned paragon ever. Never did my will falter, I knew what I had to do, I was the spearhead as Hackett called me, I was the only one who could save the galaxy and I was happy to do it. Even in my final moments when I sacrificed myself(A life given back to me from the illusive man, a cruel twist of fate having to put him down) I knew I was doing it because it gave the galaxy the best damned chance possible as the soldier I was.

Next up is my Female Shepard renegade. I knew I wanted a less definitive character. I was going to run a pure renegade, but instead I opted for a slightly more paragon mixed renegade sentinel. I wanted her to be unsure of her place, to know she was following orders but often question why? To do whatever her heart desires. I grabbed a save off of Mass Effect Saves.com and rolled her into ME3 just a few hours ago. I decided that after watching Earth burn, after watching that child die, after her sleeplessness because of him, she'd had enough. She was sick and tired of questioning why, she was tired of the orders. She was going to kill the Reapers for what they had done, and she was going to do it in the most ruthless fashion she could. Losing her parents when she was young changed her internally. She'd been grappling with that for years, but now it was finally time for her to come out of that shell and embrace her true self, the most powerful renegade in the galaxy. Nothing was going to stop her.

Really, a most of the ending commentary I've seen has been really well argued - and I'm actually kind of happy that we've had so much discourse on broader storytelling concepts in general. For gaming in general, these are important things to talk about since they affect the entire medium.

Hiya folks. Been playing mainly SP here since I only had the 2 day gold pass atm but I had a question for those who are playing on the brobox. Has anyone been having issues with the discs? I've been getting it freezing on loading screens, when it asks to switch discs and when I've literally walked up to a door and highlighted it to open. Has anyone else who's been playing had this trouble? Should I look at replacing my discs?

I feel like the Krogan who attacks you in ME1 at the end of Liara's mission was more of an adversary than whiney, baby Kai Leng was. If his entire character hadn't existed I would've been fine with that.

I feel like the Krogan who attacks you in ME1 at the end of Liara's mission was more of an adversary than whiney, baby Kai Leng was. If his entire character hadn't existed I would've been fine with that.

aye i watched yougottawanna's video and some of it i like but im no exactly convinced, sorry man

i mean you p arbitrarily say scifi can be divided into three categories, lump the me series into one of these three which you dont actually define except by giving a single example (ie trek) and then say it disnae satisfy the requirements of that genre. as for the film grain effects proving thats what they were going for, loads of games have that, quick google tells me banjo-kazooie and viewtiful joe had film grain effects and thats no exactly a star-trek aping pair of games

synthetic ending's p dumb for sure, but i dont know what youre talking about with the other two endings - you really think a massive infodump about the exact mechanisms of the destroy/control endings would have helped? cause im pretty sure that wouldve been terrible as hell. man sheps exhausted and dying and talking to what is p clearly a crazy as hell ancient maybe-machine-maybe-not hologram dude, theyre not exactly about to get a blueprint out for you and tell you whats going on. under the circumstances i def dont want all the invented tech details, what good would it do?

i sure didnae get the idea that we were supposed to (let alone told to) replace our attachment to the characters with attachment to ~organic life~ either. maybe its implied by the catalyst avatar (but cf 'crazy as hell', above) but not by the game.

the central conflict thing? man we're not told from the start that the reapers are trying to kill everyone, we dont even learn that reapers exist for a couple more hours and we dont learn that sov's a reaper til virmire! you even detail this in the next part of the video and it says p much the opposite of the what you just said! also um the main weak point of this section is that you say that the goals suddenly been changed from 'stop the reapers' to 'resolve the conflict between organic and synthetic life' but uh all the endings stop the reapers and most of them prob wont do anything to resolve the conflict between organic and synthetic life.:

- control the reapers, they go away, they have been stopped! will there be organic/synthetic conflict? who knows, maybe?
- destroy the reapers, they blow up, they have been stopped! will there be organic/synthetic conflict? if we build synthetic life again then who knows, maybe?
- synthesis, well, this is p dumb and i dinnae really ken whats up here and im no certain anybody does so fuck it

i agree to that the crashlanding scene is terrible as hell and makes v little sense wrt how the hell did the squaddies get back on the normandy, for sure. and the funny thing is the vid disnae even touch on the buzz aldrin sting post credits which might well be the worst thing about the ending, voice acting was gash, 'the shepard' is fucking cringeworthy etc.

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

Kai Leng is a poor man's Shepard, and he gets put in his place.

Not just that, but Shepard totally shits on him in the greatest exchange, during the fight.

aye i watched yougottawanna's video and some of it i like but im no exactly convinced, sorry man

i mean you p arbitrarily say scifi can be divided into three categories, lump the me series into one of these three which you dont actually define except by giving a single example (ie trek) and then say it disnae satisfy the requirements of that genre. as for the film grain effects proving thats what they were going for, loads of games have that, quick google tells me banjo-kazooie and viewtiful joe had film grain effects and thats no exactly a star-trek aping pair of games

synthetic ending's p dumb for sure, but i dont know what youre talking about with the other two endings - you really think a massive infodump about the exact mechanisms of the destroy/control endings would have helped? cause im pretty sure that wouldve been terrible as hell. man sheps exhausted and dying and talking to what is p clearly a crazy as hell ancient maybe-machine-maybe-not hologram dude, theyre not exactly about to get a blueprint out for you and tell you whats going on. under the circumstances i def dont want all the invented tech details, what good would it do?

i sure didnae get the idea that we were supposed to (let alone told to) replace our attachment to the characters with attachment to ~organic life~ either. maybe its implied by the catalyst avatar (but cf 'crazy as hell', above) but not by the game.

the central conflict thing? man we're not told from the start that the reapers are trying to kill everyone, we dont even learn that reapers exist for a couple more hours and we dont learn that sov's a reaper til virmire! you even detail this in the next part of the video and it says p much the opposite of the what you just said! also um the main weak point of this section is that you say that the goals suddenly been changed from 'stop the reapers' to 'resolve the conflict between organic and synthetic life' but uh all the endings stop the reapers and most of them prob wont do anything to resolve the conflict between organic and synthetic life.:

- control the reapers, they go away, they have been stopped! will there be organic/synthetic conflict? who knows, maybe?
- destroy the reapers, they blow up, they have been stopped! will there be organic/synthetic conflict? if we build synthetic life again then who knows, maybe?
- synthesis, well, this is p dumb and i dinnae really ken whats up here and im no certain anybody does so fuck it

i agree to that the crashlanding scene is terrible as hell and makes v little sense wrt how the hell did the squaddies get back on the normandy, for sure. and the funny thing is the vid disnae even touch on the buzz aldrin sting post credits which might well be the worst thing about the ending, voice acting was gash, 'the shepard' is fucking cringeworthy etc.

So where does it say the Salarians are building stealth dreadnaughts? I feel like I missed something important!

Well apparently you don't get that text unless you

Sabotage the genophage cure. So you never read that text because you are not a monster.

What's interesting is if you kill Wrex and destroy the data.

Then you can get Krogan support, get Salarian support, and keep Mordin alive, and have Mordin help on the crucible. Yeah, the Krogan race is doomed to extinction, but since Wreav is in charge, who cares.

Of course, it'll all go to hell in a few thousand years when the genophage wears off and the Krogan are pissed as hell.

I really don't get how the Krogan are doomed to extinction with the genophage. Because Wrex said so? He's wrong. In ME3, the game states a few things.

One, there are over 10 billion Krogan currently alive, that's not a little bit.

Two, Krogan can have 1000 children a year. The genophage makes 1 in 1000 births not carry to term. So, on average, one baby per year per Krogan female. That's pretty similar to Earth standard of reproduction.

Three, Mordin himself in ME2 states that the genophage is designed not to make the Krogan extinct, but to slow down their breeding to allow for advances in technology that allow them to breed unchecked.

That being said, Mordin isn't curing the genphage because it's logical, it's because he feels guilty about how it works. The Krogan females carry their stillborn children to birth and, on average, have 999 stillborns a year. Mordin did not change his mind until after building a relationship with Eve. In ME3, she speaks to Shepard about how she felt after her first stillborn. Mordin looked at the genophage from a pure logical perspective before Eve made him realize how the Krogan women felt (don't forget he's a Salarian, different breeding styles).

Discounting the ethics of forcing stillborns on a race for a moment, the Krogan were never in any danger of going extinct based on the genophage. Their dwindling numbers, if you can call it that, are a social problem, not a reproduciton problem. Wrex in ME1 does state that many Krogan become mercenaries because it allows them to vent their frustration and hopelessness about their racial predicament.

For me, curing the genophage is not an option. The armies in ME3 only have the capacity to fight the Reapers for one year before the infrastructure collapses (a Shadow Broker email intercept in game). So that means, even if fully cured, there is no possible way curing the genophage will be able to contribute anything to the war besides moral to the Krogan. So curing it gives two things based on winning or losing. If the Repear war is won, you now have a fully cured Krogan spread through out a galaxy that lost significan military and infrastructure. There is also no fucking way for a second that I believe Wrex and Eve can control 10 billion Krogan. So winning the war will most likely lead to another Krogan rebellion without adding a single tangible resource to the Reaper war. Second, if they lose the war and are cured....well, congradulations. You just added a few billion babies to get killed by the reapers.

So yeah, I killed Mording and lied to the Krogan about being cured so I could get their help. Then when Wrex confronted me about cheating him and he threatened to pull the Krogan? I killed him too. But guess what? He should have recalled his forces before he confronted me, because he died before he could follow through on his thrreat. In the end, I got the Krogan to help me on Earth (led by Grunt who if you belive him from ME2, likes the genophage) and tricked them into thinking they are cured.

Yes I am a monster.

the idea is that

the genophage was designed to keep the krogan birthrate at population-stable levels, but mordin didn't consider how that would effect krogan culture and behavior. The result of which is they aren't replacing themselves at stable levels.

Mordin initially dismisses this the same way you do, as a the krogan's problem to solve. But that really isn't a fair approach, especially since essentially the entire fate of the krogan since their uplift is the result of salarian engineering. The female (whose name I now can't remember for some reason) talks about how the genophage led to the withdrawal of females from krogan society, since they were too valuable as babyfactories to do anything else (or to be temporarily allowed to do anything else, anyway.)

Honestly, the salarians' use of the krogan isn't that different from what the reapers plan to do to the entire galaxy; harvest a sentient race for their own ends, and if they don't like it fuck them

I know. The genophage isn't directly causing them to die out. It's the psychological aspect of it. They think themselves dying out, so take on a fatalistic attutude that causes them to slowly die out. But the Krogan problem in the end is still a social problem. If, hypothetically, pre-Rebellion. The Krogan set up strict population control, there would have never been an issue. But all that goes against their nature because of the harsh conditions on Tuchanka.

Orca has the right of it. I saw a way to get what I wanted and took it. Even if it meant becoming a monster against everything I believe in. I feel guilty for dooming them to a lifetime of stillborn births, but not guilty if they go extinct. If there was an option to cure them of the genophage and control their birthrate through a more humane manner, I would have taken it.

I'm just trying to justify to myself my own action and convince myself they are the right decision based on a logical and pragmatic conclusion. Kinda like Mordin in ME2

Did that in ME2.

Then in ME3, I snapped like a twig. Wrex was RIGHT THERE. Disapproving. And Mordin was all going around planning to reverse the genophage, when he was the one who argued me around in the first place.

Oh, I argued myself into thinking the decision was right now when it wasn't then.

"It was about the Turians destroying the Krogans. They're cool with it now!"

"Wrex is firmly in charge now. That makes things different."

"The numbers were too fast growing in peacetime. There's a WAR now. Lots of room in the galaxy."

"It'll be different this time. All the bastards are dead."

"The Dalatrass is a bitch."

Some of them might be true. Might even be enough to change the math to make curing the genophage right.

But I know that isn't why I chose it. I just went with "My friends are on this side. I'm not going to betray them."

Like a chump.

Or, like a boss

For me, Shepard worked real hard to make sure everyone was comfortable aboard Normandy in my game. Approved of Tali and Garrus' weird cross-species thing at the end. Helped Traynor fit in, checked in on Liara, made sure Javik wasn't trying to enslave everyone every few minutes, helped Cortez over his bullshit. She's an ENFP, what can I say? Sometimes it was a bit much for me, but that's who this Shepard was. The Omega-4 Operation really changed her in my game. She went from a person who would have watched the council get nuked a hundred times, who gladly sacrificed Ashley and Wrex to finish a mission, and who had 0 qualms with working with Cerberus if it meant shooting many robots and their bug-faced servants to really learning that those dark decisions will stick with you forever. Everyone onboard Normandy in ME2 was proof of that - Mordin, Legion, Thane, Grunt, Jack. Every last one of them. And she resolved that every last one of those broken-hearted, deranged psychopaths was going to come back from the other side of that relay. And she did it. Against all odds.

So ME3 rolled around and now all it was...I don't know, man. It was regret. It was Thane's dying prayers for her that sealed the deal. I mean, I'd decided to help Mordin cure the genophage because, ultimately, what the salarians and turians had done wasn't any different than what the Reapers were doing. What the quarians had done before them with the geth - subvert and control another, possibly superior race to preserve some ideal that may not deserve to stick around.

And all I could remember was that the reason the krogan would be dangerous now was because an idiot like Wreav was in charge, and that was Shepard's fault. She was a different person then. She killed Wrex. If nothing else, she owed it to the rest of the krogan to give them the shot that Wrex would have.

this is just a++

Agreed.

My Shepard took a path like yours but in reverse. In ME1, she was a War Hero/Spacer marine, doing her job. She believed in truth, justice and the Canadian way. In Mass Effect 2, she started to slide morally. Not in the big things - she punched out Zaeed and saved the workers, she helped Samara, etc. But she was much more ruthless in how she went about things; for example, Thane's mission she went straight for the jugular in the interrogation. In Mass Effect 3, she's bitter and disillusioned. She's still a good person, she's never pointlessly cruel (she even took the Paragon path with the reporter), but she's got an edge to her that just keeps getting sharper. For example, she shoots Udina without hesitation.

By ME3, my Shepard is tired. The fight is slowly but surely being kicked out of her. She's seen her warnings ignored, and she's deeply, deeply bitter. Meanwhile, she no longer thinks of herself as just a marine, no matter how much she protests to Vega that she's just a marine - she believes that it'll all come to her and what she does. She believes that if she falters, everyone in the galaxy is doomed. She puts on a brave face. She knows the words to say. She's not going to intentionally compromise her principles. But at the end of the day, she's going to make a lot of ruthless decisions.

My Shepard went from pure Paragon to mostly Paragon to about half and half.

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

Kai Leng is a poor man's Shepard, and he gets put in his place.

Not just that, but Shepard totally shits on him in the greatest exchange, during the fight.

Any advice for speccing combat drone in multi? I'm guessing extra shields is rather pointless which makes ranks 4+5 rather easy but unsure whether to plump for rockets or chain lightning at rank 6.

I went Damage & Shields/Damage & Shields/Chain Lightning and it worked fine

I don't know about the other upgrades but I hear Shock and Rockets make the drone's behavior kind of funky, and the exploding effect is basically useless so I'd rather it be able to maybe survive a couple more seconds and distract things.

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

Kai Leng is a poor man's Shepard, and he gets put in his place.

Even TIM doubts Kai Leng, which I think is telling in and of itself.

Everything that has been said here.

Kai Leng works because its just so clear he's outclassed by Shepard and the company Shepard keeps in every possible way, and that literally the only reason he even has a chance is because Shepard is also in the middle of fighting a galactic war.

Or because Shepard just won't shoot the fucker when he obviously should.

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

Kai Leng is a poor man's Shepard, and he gets put in his place.

Even TIM doubts Kai Leng, which I think is telling in and of itself.

Everything that has been said here.

Kai Leng works because its just so clear he's outclassed by Shepard and the company Shepard keeps in every possible way, and that literally the only reason he even has a chance is because Shepard is also in the middle of fighting a galactic war.

Or because Shepard just won't shoot the fucker when he obviously should.

I too was hitting the glass ceiling - but I kind of attributed that to class burnout. I've been having an absolute blast playing the Salarian Infiltrator, and having unlocked the Raptor I'm all about the MP again.

I'm hoping that Bioware releases a new type of Pack that is just rares, it's seriously about time already. Make them 100,000 credits or something, but give us a better chance at something we actually want..

Basically, the whole point of his character is that he's what the Illusive Man used to try to replace Shepard. Like Shepard, he's part synthetic, and if I understand it correctly he's more enhanced than Shepard was. He's designed to look cool, like a JRPG or Deus Ex character and he carries a bad-ass sword. He's supposed to be Shepard 2.0. Despite that, he doesn't hold a candle to the real deal. He loses a fight to Thane, he's getting torn apart by Shepard before the gunship intervenes, and the one time he and Shepard really go toe-to-toe without an opportunity on his part to escape, in the Cerberus base, Shepard destroys him.

Kai Leng is a poor man's Shepard, and he gets put in his place.

Even TIM doubts Kai Leng, which I think is telling in and of itself.

Everything that has been said here.

Kai Leng works because its just so clear he's outclassed by Shepard and the company Shepard keeps in every possible way, and that literally the only reason he even has a chance is because Shepard is also in the middle of fighting a galactic war.

Or because Shepard just won't shoot the fucker when he obviously should.

Maybe I'm just more pessimistic, but I think they were trying to write Kai Leng as being this super badass cyborg ninja, and just failed spectacularly.

He seems like the sort of character that the writer thought was really cool, but nobody else did or does and it just comes out as cheesy because of it.

And now I'm disgusted with myself because I kept telling myself I wouldn't discuss anything but the multi.